Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. Scotland is the second largest city of the United Kingdom after Glasgow and the seventh most populous. Its lies along the east coast of the Central Belt near the North Sea. The city is very spectacular owing to its rugged setting and her vast collection of medieval and the Georgian Architecture. This is the most picturesque city in Europe that has until today retained her traditions. The city has a population of around 500,000 and its one of the most visited.

Edinburgh houses the Scotland Parliament and its home to one of the famous universities called ‘The University of Edinburgh. The city has the most unique buildings and it’s divided into two. There is the Old and New town Districts that were declared as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1995. The city has 4,500 listed buildings more than 40 conservation areas. The city host the annual Edinburgh Festival that happens annually and show cases the traditions of Scottish people dating many years back that last for almost a month.

Edinburgh attracts about I million visitors annually from overseas. It’s now the second most visited tourist destination in the United Kingdom. In the year 2009, the city was voted the most desirable to live in. The Old Town of the city has preserved the medieval buildings such as cathedrals and law courts. The most notable places include St Giles Cathedral and the Royal Museum of Scotland. The New Town also offers spectacular sites like St Andrew Square and Charlotte Square. Another feature is the Blue House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland.

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And they’re off. The property market pundits have begun their traditional house price predictions for the coming year. Hometrack, the estate agent pollster, says that values will drop by 2% in 2011. Rightmove, the property website, disagrees and prophecises a drop in (albeit) asking prices of 5%.

But that’s the thing. These dozen or so indexes and the hundreds of property ‘experts’ will all conjure up a mish mash of sooth saying which will all be at odds with each other and as proven year on year, much of it wildly off the mark.

Hometrack’s sub two percent prediction is made with a cosy ‘it will all be ok’ demeanour which is influenced completely by the very nature of the fact that their predictions themselves come from that core of self-interest merchants, the estate agency industry. It is entirely in their own interests to predict a softening to the market against an inevitability of price decline, rather than the usual banter from the wider commentators which is hell bent on talking of numbers more akin to a ‘crash’ or a ‘melt down’.

I myself won’t ‘foresee’ a figure that property prices will end at in December 2011 because it’s an entirely pointless exercise. Rather a lot can happen to steer the house market in 12 months. Interest rates, lending policy, unemployment figures, political crises, media hysteria, terrorism, banking failures, foreign events etc…

However, just take a look at where we are and what is around the corner.

Property prices have dropped for the last five to six months according to the majority of the indexes.

Rightmove says that average asking prices have dropped by 3% in December alone and 3.2% in November before it. A whacking 6.2% price tag cut in just two months.

175,000 households are in arrears with their mortgages with lenders holding off evicting them only due to political pressure and the hope that values might have further bounced back in 2010 thus making repossession more worthwhile down the line. They didn’t though.

Interest rates are seen by most as set to rise in 2011. A 2.5% base rate would be low still, but nonetheless a five fold increase on currently. With many mortgage holders having gotten rather comfortable with near zero rates, a multiplying of their monthly home loan repayment may turn out to be quite a motivator for thousands to sell and to price their home aggressively in order to do so in a stubborn, buyers’ environment.

Whilst public sector job loss forecasts have recently been revised downwards, the UK is still certain to see redundancies there and in related private sector jobs in the hundreds of thousands. Not confidence inspiring for those living in areas that are heavy on public sector jobs in particular.

Stocks of available properties amongst estate agents are at a near all time high at around 75 per agent (say Rightmove), up 24% in 2010.

This contrasts to buyer registrations which have fallen a very significant 18% in the past six months.

I am a property market optimist. I have spent years talking it up and extolling how home values may drop here and there but that ultimately they will rise again and all will be well in ‘property world’. I still believe that. However, any recovery, any return to sustainable price rises and buoyant transaction levels will now be a long time coming.

One thing that can confidently be predicted is that there is further pain to come before any cure, no matter what the New Year numbers will say.

Property market cold turkey in fact, and not the kind that you ate in sandwiches on Boxing Day.

About
Russell Quirk is founder of eMoov.co.uk the online estate agents. Russell has many years property experience having been Managing Director of a five branch estate agency firm between 1999 and 2009 and which expanded into financial services, property development, land brokerage, recruitment and also specialised in providing project opportunities to social landlords and housing associations. If you are seeking a competent commentator or media subject on all things property, contact Russell on 0845 260 4950.
If you are selling a property anywhere in the UK visit http://www.emoov.co.uk online estate agents for estate agency selling fees that will surprise you.